


Unlikely Alliance

by mgsmurf



Series: Military Modern AU Stories [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Modern future world, Rewritten Scene
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2019-11-15 03:17:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18065567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mgsmurf/pseuds/mgsmurf
Summary: An out of order series of rewrites of memorable JB related scenes set in a war-torn near future AU. These have been on my computer and limitedly posted at JBO, but thought I'd put them all together here. No clue where these are going exactly or how many there may be.





	1. Bath Scene

**Author's Note:**

> Again, these are out of order, being posted as I finish.

Jaime was weak, weaker than he'd have liked to have admitted. He stumbled out of the arms of his guide, or jailer although they would have scoffed at his suggestion he was in reality still a prisoner. For a moment he thought he might fall flat on his face. What an undignified move by the renowned Kingslayer. He shoved away his guide as he barely caught his balance and shuffled on towards the showers. 

“Think I can manage by myself.” He gave his jailer-named-guide a harsh challenging look and must have managed to still look menacing. 

The man sighed, gazed at the showers with no exit save the entrance they stood at, and then shrugged. “Just be quick about it.”

Jaime gave the man a wide sneering smile. 'I'll take my damn time if you please', he thought. Then, slowly, he shuffled along alone, feeling like the old man he must have looked. 

The antibiotics fought back the infection in his ruined hand. At least he would not lose it and the surgeon who had pieced the mauled remains back together enough to manage that had beamed when telling Jaime, likely more from joy over being spared the wrath of Jaime's father than actual pride at his medical work. 

Bruises and cuts in various stages of healing spotted Jaime's body, but they were mostly cosmetic. The infection, blood loss, not to mention a good year of captivity and starvation is what had actually done a number on him. He should be glad he was alive, glad he had freedom in his sights, because the authorities here were certainly chatting up a storm with the great General TywinLannister to appease him and get his prized son back. 

He'd entered the shower room and stripped off the ragged remnants of his clothing before he noticed he was not alone. 

“The shower's taken,” Lieutenant Brienne Tarth said. Her voice came out shrill and girly. She stood a hunk of flesh, taller than him and almost as wide. The largest women he'd ever seen. 

“We've both done co-ed before.” He shrugged and shuffled over to the shower beside the one that streamed warm water on her pale body. From boot camp on soldiers showered in co-ed facilities, lived in close contact. It wasn't that they didn't acknowledge they were human and sexual, just that they got over it. 

Still, Tarth's beautiful blue eyes widened. She drew into herself, as much as a woman her size possibly could. It had not been an easy few weeks for her either. Bruises dotted her pale skin as much as his own. There had also been the sexual attack upon her. No one wanted to feel themselves powerless, strong as she might be, she was still a woman and could be violated like any other. 

Jaime turned on the water. The power of it stung his cuts and it was awkward keeping the bandage of his hand out of the water, more awkward using his left hand to reach up for the soap. At the same time it was luxury, the water washing away months and months of dirt and stink. 

“Maybe you can help make sure I don't go fainting, darling.” He made sure his Texas twang was clearly present. He did not have to look at her to know she prickled at nickname he'd given her, at being called darling. “Hate to crack my head open to add to all my other woes. I'd never hear the last of it.” His words sounded jesting, but the world was tilting at bit from all the time on his feet, from the warmth of the water and thickness of the stream around them. 

Tarth loudly scoffed. “I believe, major, my care of your welfare has ended.”

“And such a wonderful job you did at that.” The words were out of his smart mouth before his head thought better of them. 

“How dare you.” Suddenly Tarth was there, beside him, looming tall and proud. Her jaw set, thick lips flattened, brow furrowed. 

Jaime couldn't not look fully at her. His first impression of her all those weeks ago was certainly true, at best she was plain, at worst on the ugly side. Her shoulders were almost as wide as his, her arms dense with muscles, her small breasts dwarfed by her wide chest. Still, there was a curve to her hips, and her muscular legs were impossibly long, the thick blonde hair at the apex of those legs dampened by the shower. It made her look surprisingly womanly despite her size. 

Jaime could not help his arousal, like a damn green boy in basic. 'It had clearly been too long since he'd been in his dear Cersei's arms,' he thought. He was not one to find most women appealing, always having had only eyes and thoughts of Cersei. He tried to shove aside why his body was stupidly betraying him for this giant of a woman. 

Tarth still stood above him, glaring, her beautiful blue eyes boring into his. He managed to raise his good hand and hold it palm out. “Sorry. I... You got me here, alive.” Not that it yet quite felt like he should be glad to have at least escaped with his life, but someday he would realize he was, because he knew it was the only thing that really mattered. “Truce?”

He bowed his head and adverted his eyes from hers, an easy task considering she was taller than him, which still felt odd and interesting with a woman. It only brought his attention to her breasts, small rounded things and likely half muscle, their nipples pink and pert. He swallowed down his desire as his cock only further betrayed him. 

“You need trust for a truce,” she said. 

“I trust you,” his voice quiet against the pounding shower water. He lifted his eyes to meet hers. Her confidence faltered for a moment, that odd fragility crept into her expression and it made her look girly, for she was wasn't she, barely over 20. 

Tarth took a step back to her own shower, and with a huff through her thick lips turned her back to him. Water flowed down the toned muscles of her back and then over the firm curve of her ass, down her long, strong legs. 

Jaime turned away too, hiding his arousal, trying to think of anything that would squelch it. He dipped his head under the stream of water and watched the dirt that flowed off without even soap. He fumbled with the soap again, his left hand useless, and frowned in irritation. 

He felt eyes on him and turned to look at Tarth. Her expression held the same judgment he'd seen for decades now. Normally he would shrug it off, tell himself he didn't give a shit, but in this moment wounded, broken, naked, he couldn't make himself do so.

“There's the look,” he said. “Kingslayer, all anyone ever cares to see.” The physical scars from his long ago encounter with Aerys Targaryn had healed to thin lines. Aerys, while some thought him a general or a CEO he had been elected a president, of a sort, but the thin crazy man thought of himself as a king, a ruler who need not follow any rules. People had taken to calling him such. Jaime swallowed down the bile in his throat. The true scars of the night he had betrayed the man he had sworn to aid, like his father before him, were still fresh. 

Tarth frowned. Water dribbled over her delicate cheekbones and down her chin. Such a youthful face. 

“You were devoted to your Senator Renly, but what would you have really done for him?” Jaime cocked his head. “Would you have allowed him to kill innocents? How many? One, a dozen, a hundred?” For had not Jaime allowed Aerys to harm so many people, not all innocent, but few deserving of the torture and sometimes death the Mad King had bestowed them.

Tarth just further frowned, stared. 

“Do you know what really happened with the Mad King?” His voice cracked against the white tile walls. They both still stood in the splashing water of the showers. 

Tarth shook her head, blue eyes wide. 

Jaime reaching out to the wall to steady his wobbly feet. “Nukes,” he hissed the truth that had never before passed his lips. “No idea where he had gotten them, North Dakota, Russia, maybe the Iranians, but he had nukes, plural. And he meant to use them, made plans to do so. He talked of little else at the end of his insanity.”

“To bomb who?” Tarth whispered. “China? Europe?”

Jaime sneered and shook his head. “Us. New York, California, DC. Us.” Jaime was born an American, but his loyalty to his family and to Texas had long proceeded any love of the USA. But, to destroy them, not just his armed enemies but the innocents who had only done wrong in where they had been born and lived.

Tarth's eyes widened further. Her thick lips parted in shock. “But then...”

“Millions would have died.” His heart beat as hard as it had that night. “Millions of Americans. He called for the Ministry of Research, who held the codes for the missiles. It was easy enough to kill that leach before he could pass on the president's message.” He still remembered how the small man had slumped from the single shot to his forehead. 

“I was the only personal bodyguard the Mad King had not sent elsewhere.” Trapped there, a prisoner in all but name to insure his father did not turn against Aerys. All of that responsibility, for he had taken his obligation seriously, it had certainly been too much for the boy of 18 he had been at the time. “I entered pistol drawn, and it took the old man a moment to figure out what I meant to do. I was just a few strides short of him, when he turned and ran, fear in his eyes.” Jaime sneered. “Single shot to the back of the head.” 

He still thought it such an undignified way for the tyrant to go down. Killed by his own bodyguard from a shot in the back. His father still rattled a bit at the “in the back” part, if only because it sounded bad to an average Texan. Tywin Lannister had no qualms about attacking anyone's back. 

“Nukes?” Tarth shook her head. “That can't be true. Why would you not have told someone?”

“Tell?” Jaime scoffed. “Tell who?” He scrunched his face up in anger. “Big Bobby that doofus? Ned his self-righteous keeper?” 

He shook his head and his vision swam. His knees finally buckled and he felt himself start to fall. Suddenly, Tarth darted forward, that speed always surprised him in such a large body. She caught him with ease, even given his own size, and guided him to a bench beside the showers. 

“Are you alright, Major?” The kindness in her words matched the gentleness her arms had when they held him.

He made sure to keep his gaze on her stunning blue eyes, to keep it from viewing the rest of her and how his body might respond. “Jaime, my name is Jaime.”

She met his gaze, her eyes honest. “Should I get someone for you?”

He shook his head and scoffed. “None of them care that much about my welfare.” He frowned. He was alive and mostly whole, they didn't care much beyond that. His own father would likely care less, only wonder when he'd be able to get back to the fight.

She knelt before him, long legs and strong arms. Water dripped off her pale bare flesh. Her face showed nothing but kindness, oblivious to the situation of them two of them naked and wet. His cock stirred again and he tried to shove down the feelings. “What can I do?” she asked.

He wanted to say he only needed a moment, but it would be a lie. His head still swam and whatever energy he'd had left seemed to have been spent dealing with the day's affairs, meetings and medical procedures. Jaime waved a hand to dismiss her. “Finish your shower. Someone will eventually be by after me.”

Her thick lips tugged into a frown and it somehow made her face look sweet instead of ugly. Tarth rose and crossed the showers. She took up a bucket and filled it before turning off the showers and returning to him. Water sloshed at his bare feet as she set down the bucket. 

Then she bathed him with a rag, slowly cleaning the filth of a year away. Her large hands were surprisingly gentle. He wondered when he had last been bathed by someone, last shown such affections. It was not at all Cersei's way. His mother, he finally reasoned was the last who had given him such affection, before she had died in his childhood. 

“My name is Brienne,” she finally said, voice quiet and slightly echoing in the quiet of the shower room. 

“I know. You told me.”

She pinched her lips, nodded, blinked. Jaime swallowed against the intimacy of the moment. “Thank you,” he finally managed. He wondered how long before this harsh world would break her of this kindness. 

Tarth, Brienne, gave a half-smile that lit her eyes an even more beautiful blue. She lifted the bucket to return it before pausing. “Why did you save me?”

He'd told a lie to end Lock and his men from doing more than only attempting to rape her. At the time she had been the most intriguing person he'd met in years. But there was more to it, she had a fragility to her he knew would not survive, and he didn't want to see her broken. But, he couldn't manage those words. He shrugged, swallowed, could not find his usual sarcastic reply. 

She finally sighed and turned away to return the bucket. “Thank you,” she said, almost a whisper that echoed off the tile walls. She tilted her head back to him. “I..., thank you.”

His words stuck in his throat, or maybe that was his heart. Trauma brought people together, he knew that, most of all from his childhood and Cersei. It's just companionship, he tried to tell himself, he'd just never felt it before with a woman, that was all. 

“Do you think you can manage to get to the locker room and your clothing?” Tarth, Brienne, was asking. She'd grabbed a robe from somewhere, worn white terrycloth now covering the expanse of her pale flesh, leaving those long legs of hers still too bare. 

Jaime found himself shaking his head to clear it, wiggling his feet. “I think.” Though he was not quite so certain. He shoved himself to his feet too fast, the world spun, he stumbled. And Brienne's strong arms had him. 

She put one of his arms over her shoulder, wrapped her arm around his back. It was awkward as she had at least an inch on him, at least. Her size and gentleness again awed him. 

They shuffled their way the twenty or so feet to the locker room, where Brienne gently set him upon the bench beside the fresh clothing he'd been given. “I can manage the rest,” he said, with what he hoped sounded like confidence. 

“Sure?” She lifted a light blonde eyebrow. 

“Yes.” He nodded, took up the first of the clothing items. “See you at dinner?” 

“Yes.” She dipped her head, furrowed her brow, pursed her lips as if she had something else to say, but left it unsaid and turned to go to her own clothing left elsewhere in the locker room. She paused at the end of the aisle and looked back over her broad, pale shoulder. Somehow she looked vulnerable, despite her size and muscles and abilities, and he ached to be able to protect her. Not that he could have voiced any of that. She turned away, and Jaime found himself alone.


	2. Tywin's "Become the man you were meant to be" chat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jumping to the first. A take on Tywin's showly chat about Jaime being the man he needed to be.

Jaime Lannister strolled through the lobby of the general's penthouse offices. He gave a nod to the secretary and did not pause until he stood before the closed double oak doors. Lannister Industry was a corporation not a government or actual independent sovereign unto itself. 'Just an oversight though,' Jaime thought. His father “General” Tywin Lannister ruled his business kingdom with a tight fist from a towering high-rise that looked down upon Austin, Texas. 

His boots thudded on the polished granite floor. His right hand rested on the pistol holster at his hip. His creased uniform was more comfortable than it might have looked, his modern armor. One might say he was not a real solider, even if he had excellent marksmanship, had studied strategy and had a good decade of actual experience in armed battle. 

The two guards flanking the sides of the office doors gave him harsh looks. Both had shined boots, Kevlar armor and chiseled jaws. Jaime gave them in turn a cutting smile. They like everyone else thought Jaime was just a pretty playboy playing at solider, only anything because he was Tywin Lannister's handsome elder son, otherwise a pretty and empty head. Just like the kids in school who had thought him only a mindless jock. 

“He's expecting me,” Jaime said, not asking for permission as he shoved open the heavy wood doors. 

Inside, his father's booming voice echoed off the walls, along with the grainy reply from a vid call. Intimidating was the best word for Tywin Lannister. He wanted what he wanted and expected nothing less. His ability to play the game, to just know what most people were going to do was almost unrivaled. They were all just pawns in his father's games, and Jaime had known this most of his life. He took a parade rest stance, gave a nod when his father acknowledged him, and waited for the call to end. Just another pawn, even if perhaps he was General Lannister's most prized pawn. 

“You will do as I ask, or I will find someone who will,” the general ended the call with a jab at the end call button. 

He leaned back on the front of his mahogany desk. The general was long, lean and still muscular for his age. “Jaime.”

“Father.” Jaime dipped his head. 

“Good news from the front?”

Jaime tightened his lips. The corporation had fought a number of battles over different things in the last few decades, when corporate tactics and legal maneuvering did not prevail. The most recent fight was a mess and not likely to be an easy win. “News,” Jaime finally answered. His father hated any bearer of bad news, but his father would think more poorly of him later if he lied and his assessment was later deemed wrong. 

The general peeked an eyebrow, a silent urge for Jaime to continue, a question if Jaime's words would match what the general might already suspect himself. 

Jaime broke his parade stance, took a casual step closer and rested his hand on the butt of his pistol. “It's a mess. Even a victory will come at too much of a cost.” If a victory could even be carved from the poor strategy already in place. “It was not the best.... response.” The unspoken word, 'foolish' hung in the air, but General Lannister was never foolish and Jaime was not about to call him such.

His father momentarily frowned, an odd look on his long face, then his features of stone returned with those all knowing green eyes. “He's family,” the general replied. “And if you don't protect family and the legacy of the corporation, what else do we have?” He cocked his head, narrowed his eyes. 

'Family,' Jaime thought, his brother, the general's son. Tyrion Lannister, his younger brother, was possibly the only rival Jaime knew to his father's intellect and strategy. They were so seemingly alike. Yet, Jaime was the groomed and beloved son, and Tyrion the disgraced little person, disliked by their father for his lack of physical abilities and for taking away the one thing their father might have loved, their mother. Perhaps, Jaime should be happy his father actually accepted Tyrion as family worthy of fighting for, even given the military mess such had currently put the corporation into. 

Jaime finally nodded. What was he to say to that, or what to not offend his father who had never truly loved any of them? Best to just move on to what he had come for. 

“There might be a way to salvage it still.” He stepped closer to the desk. Jaime knew without needing to check that his father would have maps of the midwest on his tabletop screen. It was updated hourly with troop movements, there for General Lannister to plot and mull over in any spare moment he had. 

“Young Stark is bold and he certainly has a better head for strategy than his father had,” Jaime continued. Robb Stark, all of twenty two, had been vexing the general for months now, always doing the unexpected and unconventional. “They have to cross the Mississippi if they're to get all the way to us.” There were limited places an army of the size Young Stark had amassed could easily do that. St. Louis would be the reasonable place for such, but Young Robb was, again, anything but conventional. “We meet him in Memphis, the east side of the river.”

The general cocked an eyebrow. “Memphis? He won't go that far south.”

“Are you certain?” Jaime stepped closer to the desk and screen, such that he stood abreast of his father. Unconventional, Jaime left the word unspoken, it was how Young Stark had been winning so far. “Give me one elite company, specialized in urban warfare. If I'm wrong you've lost little.” A hundred men out of thousands being gone barely mattered to his father.

His father leaned back, angled his head, narrowed his eyes. “You've played at this,”-- he waved his hand at the screen--,”much too long.” Since Jaime had barely been a man he had been a solider in one form or another, first for the Mad King as security, then the buffoon that was Robert Barathon, and finally for his father. People thought him smug, pretty, saw him only doing the deeds for the incompetent instead of being his own man.

His father's broad hand was on his neck, long fingers angling up Jaime's neck. Curse the man for still being an inch taller than Jaime himself. “The Lannister legacy will be tried by this. I need you to finally be the man that I have prepared you to be.” Jaime swallowed. He felt all of six years ago, too much of the world on his little shoulders as his father groomed him in his study of dark mahogany in their old massive and empty house.

“Do you understand?” Tywin Lannister asked, his eyes boring into Jaime's. He nodded despite his father's hand still aside his face. What kind of man did he want to be, and would it ever live up to his father's expectations?

General Lannister stepped away, lowered his hands and then his eyes to the desk and tabletop screen. “The men are yours. Use them wisely.”

“Yes, sir.” Jaime nodded as his father briefly looked up dismissing him. He turned sharply on his heels and strolled from the room. He wanted to win, he wanted to get the corporation and his family out of the mess of this 'war'. That was all, he told himself as he mentally went through the available military companies to pick the best one to choose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've made the Lannister's Texasan, 'cause who doesn't want Jaime with a southern drawl. Also, Texas is a bit of a larger than life place, or thinks itself such. For some reason I always put the Starks in the midwest. The West would likely make the north of GoT better though. But I needed the geography for this bit. And truthfully not sure how this world yet completely blends near future possibilities of our world with GoT themes and plot points.


	3. Red Tent Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The redo of the Red Tent scene. And then she saw him, Jaime Lannister, as gorgeous as she ever remembered him. “Ma'am?” Podrick had been talking to her about something, and she had missed it all, too caught up in admiring Jaime Lannister. She felt like a silly school girl, although admitting such did not slow her heartbeat any.

Major Brienne Tarth frowned. It had been all about the show, a display for anyone not in the know that anything between the divided factions might change soon. Almost over, she thought, almost, as she sipped her port. It was rich and full bodied. She had survived mingling during social hour, despite the fact that she stood out with her height, even in a room full of military members. She had survived the dry dinner conversation with General Mace Tyrell and Colonel Randyll Tarly at her table, and even drier chicken they had been provided as dinner. Brienne, like many others, hoped the fighting would eventually end, that a united peace would come again. Despite all the major factions large and small being present, Starks, Lannisters, Tyrells, Baratheons, Greyjoys and Wildlings, this peace award ball had made no move towards anything resembling actual peace. 

“Cigar, Ma'am?” Lieutenant Podrick Payne gave his already unwrapped cigar a good sniff, as he handed one off to her. 

“Sure.” She followed Payne in lighting up. At least the Greyjoys had in proper navy fashion thought of cigars and port to finish off the evening. She envied that Podrick had been sat at a table with more junior officers and seemed to have laughed away the dinner and award reception afterwards with Master Sergeant Bronn. Brienne did not usually smoke but this far corner of the smoke “deck” was mostly empty, a great way to escape any further conversation. She'd had enough empty talk for one night. 

“At least it's a beautiful night,” Podrick commented. 

Brienne nodded. It was. The moon shone down large and bright, the fall air finally held a hint of chill. She'd undone the jacket of her dress uniform, Stark Army gray with black pin striping. She wore a blue cummerbund though and a blue and silver star and moon pin on her lapel for Tarth. 

She was about to step father into the dark, enjoy her cigar and port and wait long enough to make an appropriate exit, when she saw him, Lieutenant Colonel Jaime Lannister. How many years now had it been since they have parted ways in Austin after the the trauma of their capture in the Appalachians? Two? Three? 

The years had been kind to him, only adding a bit of gray to his hair, a few lines around his eyes, otherwise he was unworldly handsome as she remembered. He wore the formal Lannister uniform, dark pants trimmed with a red stripe, matching short dark coat with gold lion buttons and gold chain, a block of medals on his left chest, red cummerbund and red bow tie, now undone and hanging around his neck. His ruined right hand in a black glove rested on decorative sword with a golden lion head. He was clean shaved, his hair cut short and tight, his cheeks a bit rosy perhaps from too much wine. She had seen him such before, just prior to their last parting, yet somehow in her thoughts he was always unshaven with a mop of golden hair. 

“Ma'am?” Podrick had been talking to her about something, and she had missed it all, too caught up in admiring Jaime Lannister. She felt like a silly school girl, although admitting such did not slow her heartbeat any. 

“If you'll excuse me, Lieutenant,” Brienne said to Podrick, not looking back for his reply as her feet carried her towards Lannister. It was only after she'd crossed the busy patio and was feet away from him that she wondered just what she was doing. 

“Brienne?” Jaime raised a curious eyebrow at her. The familiar way he said her name paused her feet. 

She wanted to smile as brightly as her she felt inside at just having him before her again. But that was silly and girly and instead she held her expression tight, afraid what she may show otherwise. “Lieutenant Colonel,” she managed to say. 

He gave a slight frown at that, and she wanted to explain she meant not to be so formal in using his rank, but to address him as Jaime in a public setting, perhaps in any setting, might undo her. 

“Hey, where did you get the cigar?” He stepped closer, almost into her personal space. 

Brienne blinked down at the cigar she had forgotten in her right hand, the glass of port still in her left. “Lieutenant Podrick got it from... somewhere.” She furrowed her brow and stood taller to look around the patio for where they might be handing them out. “The Greyjoys.” She shrugged. 

Jaime downed the last of his port in one long sip, put the glass down on the nearest table and then stood taller himself to scan the room. He was a tall man, and yet Brienne was still the larger by a bit. He finally frowned and looked back at her. 

“I heard about Sansa Stark,” he said, “about you helping her.”

“Rescuing,” Brienne said in correction. She had been there to help Sansa flee her abusive ex-husband Ramsey Bolton and the horrible acts he had done to her. Brienne had then been her protection for weeks after until they reached Sansa's cousin Jon Snow who now aided her. 

“Yes.” Jaime nodded. “Catelyn would have been proud of you for what you did, thankful.”

Brienne tipped her head, blinked back tears at the woman who, even in death, she held such honor for. “Yes, she would have.” Neither of Catelyn's daughters were safe just yet, and perhaps safety in this new world was not a possibility at all. She sighed and shook her head. “This 'Peace Awards'....”

Jaime pinched together his lips and gave a single nod. “Never was going to be anything approaching peace here.” 

She wanted to tell him of Sansa and Jon Snow's aims to retake Billings, the Starks once home, knew he would approve of the move even if they were his enemy, but they were in a crowded room with too many ears and eyes. 

“You look good, Brienne.” Jaime's words drew her attention back to him. “Even in Stark gray. You look... confident.”

Brienne blinked and cocked her head. “Thank you.” She was not the woman who had left Austin, the seat of Lannister control, those years ago. Yes, she might have been more confident, she was also more aware that the gray area between right and wrong he had once talked of was surely true. “How have you been?”

He tightened his lips, gave one shoulder a slight shrug. So much had happened, the death of his father and his step sister Cersei's daughter he had fathered. The Lannister corporation continued to do unthinkable and illegal practices, things he could not at all agree or believe in. Jaime looked so sad for a moment she almost thought about reaching out a hand to him, yet both were full. 

“Mind if I borrow your cigar?” Jaime reached out his good hand. She wondered if he had gotten any better at using his right, injured hand. 

“Sure.” Brienne handed it over. 

Jaime had to give it several good puffs to get it started again. He gave her a wiry smile. “It goes,” he finally answered. 

She nodded knowingly with a slight wince. She knew him, knew he was as loyal to a fault as she herself could be. The crowd was clearing out. She took a sip of her port. It would be fine if she made an exit, and yet she lingered, because she did not want to leave him, a person who was in name her enemy and in reality meant too much to her. 

“Oh.” Brienne reached into her inside jacket pocket. The last time she had seen Jaime he had given her a Lannister Corporation code card and it had come in hand on her quest to find Sansa Stark, getting her through and into places her word alone could not have. “This is yours.” She reached out to hand it to him, the card cupped in her large hand so as to hide what it held. The card face was white save a broad red stripe and the dancing Lannister lion logo. How many times had she traced those? Seen the glint from the chip on the opposite side? Holding onto it was silly. Even having it here tonight, as always, when it had no use was silly. “It did come in handy, but... it has served its purpose.”

Jaime frowned, looked at her hand and then her face. He shook his head and gently pushed her hand away. “It's yours.” It was a stupid code card, she tried to tell herself., yet the depths of emotions in Jaime Lannister's green eyes for her still having it scared her. 

She returned the card to her pocket and took a long sip of the rich port to hide her eyes and own emotions. Jaime looked down at his shined dress shoes and took another draw on the cigar. There was so much she wanted to say, so much she wanted to tell him. 

“If it comes to fighting, between the Lannisters and Starks,” Brienne whispered. His eyes raised to her, he cocked his head. “If we actually take up arms...” They were enemies after all, no matter what illusion tonight tried to create. “I fight for the Starks...against the Lannisters... against...” She could not word the last, 'against you.'

Jaime frowned, yet nodded. “Yes, of course.” He sighed and all those emotions filled his eyes again. “Hopefully we don't ever find each other on a battlefield.”

Brienne swallowed over the lump in her throat. Could she actually shoot him in such a situation? Could he? She pushed the thought away, took a step back, wished she could do the same with her emotions. She gave him one last nod and then turned on her heels and hurried away. Her heart hammered in her chest and her palms had grown slick with sweat by the time she placed her port upon an empty table. Her heart knew the answers to those questions, and it only meant she had even more reason to somehow find a way to peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As made King's Landing/Casterly Rock be Austin and then the Riverlands Appalachia in this. Hopefully that makes sense.


End file.
